Stated it was because of lack of participation, I'm not sure if they don't have enough to field a team or if they just don't have enough to field a team safely against a 5a school. I honestly never thought this game should have been scheduled to begin with. Harlan Independent is a dying program.

Harlan, Harlan County football series canceled

 

Harlan County Schools Superintendent Brent Roark said that a shortage of players for the Green Dragons is the reason for the cancellation. He added that Harlan Independent is hopeful that as the season progresses more players will join the team.

So it appears that Harlan Independent isn’t prepared to quit on the season but they’re not going to the play the opener. Here’s hoping they can get a team together but small, rural, independent school districts days are likely numbered.

I wonder if we are going to see more of this in the near future.

For a good number of the 1A schools, it only takes a few players drop in roster numbers to put the team into this situation. Harlan over the years has hovered around 28-30 players (including freshmen). There have been a couple years in the past ten where they were at 23, 26 players. If you have one class of students that aren't playing football or you just have a few players that choose not to play for whatever reason, it is pretty easy to go from 23 to 17 or 18 and have concerns about having a viable roster. It is tough to play the 5A and 6A schools when you have less than 20 players, including freshmen.

 

As to whether this is going to be more of a problem in the future, based on what we have seen in the past few years, things look headed in that direction for the small schools. There have been teams drop out of KHSAA district play. There have been teams that forfeited games or perhaps even should have forfeited games they didn't. Yes, I think it will be an issue going forward for the smaller 1A schools.

Unfortunately that is the facts... the last two seasons, we (Campbellsville) have had 24 players on our roster... 15 to 20 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have 30/35 on the roster... so we continue to be creative and really work closely with our youth programs.. it becomes a necessary responsibility of the small Class A programs.

Unfortunately that is the facts... the last two seasons, we (Campbellsville) have had 24 players on our roster... 15 to 20 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have 30/35 on the roster... so we continue to be creative and really work closely with our youth programs.. it becomes a necessary responsibility of the small Class A programs.

 

And Campbellsville is currently one of the top programs in 1A.

 

Here is a question to consider. Are more players choosing to play for county schools versus the smaller 1A and 2A schools? For example, are there players who in the past may have played at Harlan that are instead playing at Harlan County?